Moto G6 Review – The Moto G series become beautiful, stays smart

Posted by
Chetan Bhawani,
Jun 29, 2018

While the smartphone market in every price segment is getting crowded, take a look at the past, about five years ago, where it all began. Before even Xiaomi could make a mark, it was Motorola’s Moto G series that defined the price to performance ratio perfectly, and it has been doing so quite well. The latest from the company in the same series is the Moto G6, with the phone being quite different from its predecessor, the Moto G5.

While most of the rivals are still sticking with the metal bodies, or a couple of them opting for a glossy polycarbonate plate, Moto G6 series is coming with sheets of glass for the aesthetic appeal, and that is common with all the three phones in the series, the Moto G6, Moto G6 Play, and the Moto G6 Plus. How well does the phone do with the internal specs? We find out in the review below.

The phone’s designs are always under the radar because it isn’t only the looks, but also the size that is important. The Moto G6 here is chosen to have a smaller display size than the competitors, with a 5.7-inch display (and believe me, we used to call this size as hefty a couple of years ago) having the 18:9 aspect ratio and the display is sharp enough thanks to the Full HD+ resolution.

Moto G6 has the glass back that is layered over the metal that encases the internal components and the glass is not just reflective, it has the feel of Moto X4, the mid-range device from the company. But with glass backs, there is always that annoyance of getting fingerprints and smudges with ease. Thankfully, Motorola says that regular cleaning won’t bring upon scratches easily as the back is covered with Gorilla Glass protection. Also, thanks to the phone being smaller than the other regulars, it is rather more comfortable to hold and the phone offers grip and what might be an annoyance for us, the camera bump on the back helps further in ensuring that the phone doesn’t slip out of the hand. Even the edges of the back of the phone curve down for a better hold, and that sums it up about the design. It looks good, feels good, but there will always be that worry about the Moto G6 falling and breaking its back.

The display is quite sharp and it puts out colors quite well. The vibrant colors can be easily made out from the competitors and the higher resolution is easily noticeable when compared to the Moto G6 Play that has an HD+ resolution. The change in brightness, though, would make the colors feel a little lesser saturated but this is not a one-off case and is common across most of the smartphones except for the ones that rock an AMOLED display (which is hard to see in a mid-range phone). The taller 18:9 aspect ratio gives you more area to play with, only if you choose to use the one-button nav and let go of the on-screen navigation buttons.

While on the first look at the spec sheet, it would be easy to write off the Moto G6 saying that the company chose a chipset that might not be any close to the competition, but that doesn’t matter if you use the phone for a good time. That interface makes it up all to give a smooth and snappy performance even with the Snapdragon 450 processor that otherwise is close to Snapdragon 625 anyway.

The day-to-day usage never would let you think about whether it is slowing down because it doesn’t slow down any time, but then there was not much to complain about during heavy usage, even while gaming. I won’t dig much into this because it is certain that the performance is classy and as expected from a Moto device, having a UI that matches the stock Android and has something more to it in the form of Moto Experience.

The interface is what one would never have to say anything negative about, given that it is what Android as a basic OS would look like. Let’s get a little into the Moto Experience itself. The Moto G6 has so much to experience and take advantage of, including the funky yet useful features like “Chop for Flashlight” and “Twist to open camera”. Moto Voice works quite well and the overall experience with all the features given in that list is something you would have wished to see on every smartphone.

On the camera department, it can be called something better than the previous Moto phones, but yet it is hard to call this camera the best of the lot in this price range. The Moto G6 carries a dual-lens camera combination on the back with that excellent looking ring that houses it, and the 12-megapixel primary sensor has the F/1.8 aperture to pull in enough light to keep the photos well-lit. The photos do look good and the colors captured are brilliant, the dynamic range as well is to the point but where the photos go a little off the range is in low light, which is quite expected.

The secondary 5-megapixel camera is for the depth sensing and it does help in the background blur, which again is better than what we had seen with the Moto G5s Plus and thankfully, the software does offer a lot more than just selecting the area that has to be blurred. But let’s talk about how it is different from the others. The phones like Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro and ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M1 do a little better job with the colors, and the Xiaomi’s offering actually has a better portrait capture performance as well.

[Camera samples to be put up soon]

Both, the slow-motion videos as well as time-lapse are offered here. The selfies are taken at an acceptable level and even with this, we see some options like face beauty mode that can be auto or manual, time lapse, Face filters as well, and the HDR capability is available for the front camera too.

While it might seem that the Moto G6 with the 3000 mAh battery might not be able to take it through due to the increased usage but for a regular user, given how well Moto has optimized things, there is a good battery life offered, with the phone lasting easily for a day. To add to this, what Motorola’s mid-range phones come with, it is the same TurboPower charger that the Moto G6 comes with having the quick charge capability, and this comes really handy.

The Moto G6 is a complete phone with all that one would wish for, but they would have also wished for a little better camera combination. Otherwise, the build and design, the performance, the interface, and the battery life are all so good for the price that the phone is being sold at. In a market as big as India, there are several options in every price segment and this one where the Moto G6 lands, there are some very good phones that it competes with, yet holds itself strong.

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